Biological complexity: evolution of ion exchange pathways (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, July 27, 2015, 18:42 (3407 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Comment: The enormous complexity of each single cell in our bodies is slowly being elucidated. We really know just a little so far, but it is not difficult to imagine what the whole story will look like 50 years from now, an amazing biologic machinery automatically functioning, each contributing to the living whole organism in perfect coordination. This is why cells look like they 'think'.-Our multicellular selves came from single cells, as the article states. Think how self-reliant single cell organisms have to be from the start of life! Metabolize food, avoid danger and reproduce, and this can all be done automatically with the right chemical reactions if the DNA has enough initial information controls.-I share your enthusiasm for the marvellous complexity of the cell, for its amazing self-reliance when it was on its own, for its astounding capacity to cooperate with other cells and form new communities that coordinate perfectly. And there can be no doubt that as these communities became more and more complex, many of them would have taken on roles which they performed automatically. But there are some problems. Why and how would they have cooperated in the first place, and why and how would they have done so to form new organs and new organisms? “Information controls” suggests they were preprogrammed to do so, which entails a set of programmes for the millions of innovations and natural wonders being passed down through thousands of millions of years and organisms etc. etc. - you know the problem. But a dear friend of mine sort of offered a glimmer of hope that there might be another solution, if we just slightly twist his wording. You see, some actions might LOOK as if they're automatic, but that doesn't mean they ARE automatic. They might also be the product of intelligence. And my friend himself agrees that both hypotheses are equally likely. We just have to pick the one we consider more convincing.